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Nunez Reemerges as Yankee Prospect

Eduardo Nunez gets a helping hand from Derek Jeter during Spring Training. Could he be Jeter's backup by the summer?

In his Daily Futures feature on ESPN.com (insider only), Kevin Goldstein identified Eduardo Nunez as a potential sleeper who could help the Yankees this season. Nunez, currently hitting 370/.442/.522 while playing SS at Scranton, was originally signed by the Yankees as a non-drafted free agent on February 25, 2004. Initially regarded as a promising prospect (ranked by Baseball America as the organization’s 6th best prospect in 2006), Nunez had toiled in the minors for five years before jump starting his career with a fine season at Double-A Trenton in 2009. Although his offensive production has come around, he has still exhibited a propensity for making errors in the minors (33 errors in 120 games at Trenton last year), so that might still keep him from overtaking Ramiro Pena as the Yankees main utility man. Still, Nunez has yet to turn 23, so the Yankees may eventually be able to extract some value from him.